Nell'ambito del programma Visiting Professor 2010 finanziato dalla Regione Autonoma della Sardegna

Ewan Tempero, PhD
Department of Computer Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand

terrà un corso-seminario dal titolo:
Challenges in Empirical Studies of Code

6, 10, 13, 17 Maggio 2011, ore 14.00 – 19.00
(Aula riunioni Dip. Ingegneria Elettrica e Elettronica, via Maglias)

Abstract:
Many theories have been proposed and much advice is given on how to best structure code, but our understanding of what really works is poor. Perhaps the best way to improve our understanding is to examine the code artifacts that have been produced. However there are many challenges that face us in doing such studies. This seminar series looks at what these challenges are, and examines how well they are addressed in the existing research literature.
The seminar sessions will be the following:
 

Friday 6 May: Theoretical challenges
In order to properly carry out any empirical study, we need to understand the theoretical foundations of such studies. This lecture focuses on two specific areas: threats to validity and measurement.
 

Tuesday 10 May: Defining good software metrics
Defining a good metric is difficult, and doing so when what we want to measure is not physical, such is software even more so. This lecture samples and critiques some of the efforts in this regard from the research literature.
 

Friday 13 May: Measuring code
To get measurements of code, code must be found and tools must be developed. This lecture samples the history of measurements of code.
 

Tuesday 17 May: Measuring quality attributes
Data we collect from code by itself is of limited value in an engineering context. Engineers use measurements to guide their decisions and so need to understand how the measurements related to the quality attributes of interest. This lecture critiques some studies from the research literature that seeks to discover possible relationships.
 

Ewan Tempero is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. He graduated from the University of Otago, New Zealand, with a BSc (Honours) in Mathematics in 1983 and received his PhD in computer science from the University of Washington, USA, in 1990. He has published over 100 papers in journals and internationally-refereed conferences, mainly in the areas of software reuse, software tools, and software metrics. His current research is developing metrics for measuring the quality of software designs.